


Timing is Everything

by indigo (indigo_angels)



Series: Mission Arc [12]
Category: The A-Team (2010), The A-Team - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 19:51:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17731544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_angels/pseuds/indigo
Summary: After a successful Mission 24, Face decides to help out another unit - with crushing consequences...





	Timing is Everything

Hannibal always said that Face had the very best timing there was. The way he could gage a shot, fire into even the stiffest of breezes with perfect results; the way he delivered a line, his comic timing immaculate so that even a deadpan stare was hilarious; the way he ran a con, waiting for the mark to basically talk themselves into whatever it was that he wanted from them – perfect, all of it. But today? As Hannibal threw open the passenger door of the jeep he was riding in and sprinted, hell for leather, down the dusty, pot-holed road, no today, the kid’s timing had sucked.

 

He shouldn’t even have been here, Hannibal berated himself as he felt the vibrations from his pounding feet hitting the ground. Should have been back at base, taking it easy, resting up still from the cracked ribs he’d suffered on the last mission. Why the hell he’d volunteered to come out here in the middle of the day, milk run or not, Hannibal couldn’t even start to fathom, but he had, and now instead of sipping a beer and watching BA and Murdock squabbling and bickering like a couple of school kids, he was buried under ten tonnes of rubble waiting, if he was even still alive, for the heavy lifting gear to arrive.

 

Hannibal skidded to a halt as the soldier with Captain’s bars on his shoulder turned his eyes on him, his face streaked with dust and grime.

 

“Report,” Hannibal snapped before he’d even had the chance to open his mouth.

 

“We don’t know what happened, Colonel, sir,” he reported briskly, snapping off a brief salute. “The lieutenant was with Corporal Barnes and they had just entered this property here. The next thing we knew there was a god-awful noise and the whole lot came down on top of them.”

 

Hannibal frowned, “IED?”

 

But Captain Blackstone shook his head, “No, sir, there was no explosion, some of the locals have been saying that a lazy man lived here, never looked after his building properly,” he shrugged at that, looking shamefaced, but Hannibal just nodded, focussed more on solutions rather than causes.

 

“Occupants?” he snapped.

 

“There were three,” Blackstone replied, “Barnes, Peck and the resident, the owner’s elderly mother.”

 

“Any accounted for?”

 

Blackstone looked to the left and nodded slightly, “Just Barnes so far,” he said quietly.

 

Hannibal turned in the direction of the nod and his heart stuttered at the shape lying under the dust covered shroud.

 

“Okay,” he said, focussing back on those solutions instead. “No contact with the remaining occupants?”

 

Blackstone shook his head. “No sir. We were digging by hand but the whole thing started shifting and so we had to stop until the props arrived. They’re coming from-”

 

“Captain Blackstone, sir!” The shout interrupted the captain’s explanation and both officers turned to the direction it had come from to see a soldier, almost unrecognisable due to the layer of grime coating him from head to toe. “It’s Lieutenant Peck, sir...”

 

Hannibal was moving before the words were completely out of the young Private’s lips, sprinting around to the side of the demolished hovel and dropping to the ground next to the spot where a pair of legs was sticking out from under a large piece of corrugated roofing. “Move, soldier!” he snapped, tapping impatiently at the dirty BDUs, “let me in there.”

 

The soldier scuttled out at top speed and without even pausing to thank him, Hannibal was down in his place, crawling into the dark tunnel and edging forward as fast as he dared. “Face?!” he hissed into the sudden silence that enveloped him. “Face! You there?” His heart was beating hard against his ribs and his eyes couldn’t make anything out in the darkness and the still settling dust, but he continued crawling in on his belly until he was sure that even his feet had disappeared under the fallen masonry. “Face!” he tried again.

 

This time, however, all his hopes were rewarded as a quiet, “Boss?” sounded just off to his left. He snapped his head around and stared futilely into the black, hands groping through the crumbling breeze blocks searching desperately for a sign of the man he loved, and at last his frantic fingers were rewarded as they skimmed grime encrusted material instead of gritty rubble.

 

“Face! Thank, God! How you doing there, kid? You okay?”

 

There was a pause and it was enough to send Hannibal’s heart into hyper-drive once more before and tired and pain filled voice reached him again. “Yeah,” Face said, before coughing to dislodge some of the dust in his throat. “I couldn’t get her out fast enough, boss, the whole lot started to come down on us and she was too old to get out on her own.” More coughing and Hannibal wasn’t sure if that was a sob in there too, he stretched further into the darkness to try and find more of the man only his fingertips were touching so far. “I don’t think she made it...” Face finished miserably and Hannibal knew then that he’d been right about the sob.

 

“Shit, kid, I’m sorry,” he murmured, edging even closer to that tired, anguished voice. “But are _you_ alright?” There was no reply for the moment and Hannibal knew that Face was deciding how honest he was going to be with his answer. “The truth kid,” he prompted, “the medics are on their way and they will need to know what help you need.”

 

The moment stretched out before the answer finally came. “I’m okay, John,” he said, even though the tone of his words totally betrayed their meaning.  “I’ve got a bump on the head, my right leg is trapped but not hurting too bad, and my left wrist is fucking killing me. I’m not gonna check out on you here or anything though.” He tried to make the last part a joke but that sob was there again, and to Hannibal nothing about this whole mess was even remotely funny, not one tiny little thing.

 

“Damn right you’re not, kid!” he growled, finally, finally managing to locate Face’s cold, reaching fingers with his own. “I’ve not crawled into all this crap for the good of my health you know!”

 

Their hands locked together, fitting perfectly after years of practice and Hannibal felt something inside himself loosen at the contact, helped along by Face’s quiet huff of amusement. “Yeah, sorry, boss,” he whispered. “Am I spoiling your golf plans with the General or something here?”

 

Despite himself, Hannibal smiled and squeezed the cold fingers in his own. “Yeah. Something like that,” he answered, knowing full well that Face knew, just as much as he himself did, that nothing, _nothing_ would ever get in the way if his boy needed him.

_____________________

 

It was a long night. Hannibal refused to leave Face’s side when the medics arrived and instead shuffled even closer, managing to attach a drip into the arm nearest him as well as pass Face an oxygen mask and slide a helmet over his dirt encrusted curls.

 

All night, work went on around them to secure what was left of the building and stop any further collapse, and then to remove the fallen masonry, brick by agonising brick, that had threatened to become Face’s tomb. And all night Hannibal kept Face talking, kept him awake and positive and made sure he knew he wasn’t alone, would never be alone.     

 

Then, not long after the sky had turned from pink to blue, there was a loud groan and the large slab of roofing was lifted away, letting light into their prison for the first time in hours. Hannibal blinked hard as the dust settled again, then looked up to find himself not two feet away from Face’s head, his skin chalk white with a layer of brick dust.

 

“Hey,” he said, smiling tiredly at the eyes that blinked back at him. “Good to see you, kiddo. Not long now, right? We’re gonna get you out in no time.”

 

Face smiled back, but Hannibal could see the pain in it and his heart started up another notch as those blue eyes fluttered closed on him. “Good,” he whispered and Hannibal had to strain to hear him. “’Cause I’m getting a little pissed off with the standard of hospitality in this place.”

 

With a frown, Hannibal shuffled forward again, more confident of moving now that he could see what he was doing and that a lot of masonry from above him had been removed. With a bit of wriggling and twisting, he managed to get far enough forward that he could place his hand on a blood streaked cheek, feeling that familiar stubble under his palm, and stroke, gently with the pad of his thumb, just the way he knew that Face liked him to. “Face,” he called, keeping his voice low enough so that he wouldn’t be overheard and he was rewarded by Face’s eyes blinking open at him again. “I know it hurts, kid,” he whispered, “I know you’ve had enough now, but just stay with me, right? Stay with me, they won’t be long.”

 

The face under his palm moved slowly in a nod and the blue eyes seemed to clear a little, latching firmly onto Hannibal’s and drawing strength from that. “I love you,” Face replied, his voice so soft that Hannibal knew it would never carry to the men toiling around them. “I never tell you that enough, John. But shit, I love you so much.”

 

Hannibal smiled and stroked a little harder, blinking furiously to clear his blurred vision. “I know,” he answered.  “I love you too, Face, more than you will ever know.”

 

“Hoi!” the shout above them shattered the moment and Hannibal twisted on his hip to try to see through the remaining rubble who was calling them.

 

“What?” he yelled back.

 

“You might want to brace up for this, sirs!” came the reply. “Last bits are being shifted!”

 

Hannibal winked at Face’s apprehensive stare, then stretched as far forward as he could, reaching one arm over Face’s shoulders, the other over his helmet protecting him as much as he possibly could. “You ready, kid?” he asked and at Face’s nod, shouted back. “Okay! Do it!”

 

Suddenly the world around them was filled with the roar of an engine, followed by the groaning and creaking of the masonry as it was shifted up and away. Hannibal closed his eyes and buried his face in the rubble underneath him as they were showered in brick dust, feeling Face tensing up under his arm and just about hearing the agonised moan that slipped from his boy’s lips as the remaining stonework was lifted off him. And then it was over and there were shouts and footsteps and sunlight all around them and Hannibal scrambled to his knees, his stomach twisting at the first sight of Face’s blood soaked vest and the way his wrist was still twisted awkwardly between two chunks of wall.

 

Corporal Barnes had been moved, but the elderly resident was still laid in the dust at Face’s side, her rheumy eyes open and lifeless and Hannibal quickly shifted to put his body between her and Face.

 

“All done, kid,” he soothed, running a quick, surreptitious hand over his boy’s grimy face, wiping away the tear tracks before they were seen. “All done, time to head back to base, yeah? And a nice comfy bed.”

 

Face was pale and starting to shake a little as the effects of his first IV bag wore off. The medics arrived at their side and Hannibal backed away a little, giving them room to move, but a dirty, grasping hand reached for his. “Don’t go, boss,” Face whispered, just loud enough for his ears, just as the medic slipped a syringe full of anaesthetic into his line, and Hannibal reached back, grabbing the filthy fingers in his own.

 

“I won’t, kid, I won’t,” he promised, and it was a promise he knew damn well he would always keep, this day and every single other.


End file.
